The 'Deep South' consists of the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the antebellum period.

Today, the Deep South is usually delineated as being those states and areas where things most often thought of as 'Southern' exist in their most concentrated form. Most definitions include the five states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

When Texas and Florida are added to the above five, these become the seven states that seceded from the United States before the start of the American Civil War, and which originally formed the Confederate States of America.

A few people also count Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee as part of the 'South', because they also became part of the Confederate States.